


Second Place

by cottonmouthcandy



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, eventual catra redemption - but in catra's own damn way thank you very much, implied past catradora, probably going to be a slow burn so expect friendship first!, so much friendship in general actually, the former cadets are a family at heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonmouthcandy/pseuds/cottonmouthcandy
Summary: She's not Adora, but maybe that's what she needs right now.or, Scorpia will make sure no one feels left behind.





	1. Adventure!

Even royalty can feel like the lowest of the low - Scorpia has gotten intimately used to that feeling. You kind of have to, when you're from a family considered to be, well... traitors. That might not have been the words the leaders of the Rebellion would use, but their soldiers had no such qualms: sellouts, cowards, hell, they already looked the part- so _of course_ nobody was surprised when they sashayed their way on over to the Horde's side.

Never mind that they were surrounded first, never mind that they'd always been just as polite as ever, never mind that no one had responded to their call for help.

What else could they have done but given in? Given their daughter, given their kingdom, given their black garnet. After all, it was give those things - or give blood and bodies to the Horde's already high death count. They had no chance.

So Scorpia had gotten used to it, as one does.

Everybody else here, they've gotten used to feeling low too; anyone who's felt Shadow Weaver's magic creeping after them on a day she's been stewing about Adora knows how it is. Some more so than others, the ones who hide scrapes and bruises, who insist on taking night shift so they can sleep in the light.

Today, though.

Today she's not feeling quite so low, and it's all due to a certain feline. The feline who's currently draped over her shoulders - no, not willingly, but hey! Scorpia takes what she can get, and today it is Catra, too exhausted to fight, curled unwillingly close and still murmuring things about personal space into her ear, which sort of tickles, really.

Her furry friend is quite the enigma, but she feels less so like this. Down to earth, her (slight) weight pressed over set shoulders, a pool of liquid sunshine. Anchoring, almost, and she has to admit it's nice to have someone around who doesn't even hesitate at her pincers that make so many balk and back away.

Speaking of claws, tiny black ones are loosely wrapped about her this moment, half mindlessly kneading in and out of her maroon shoulder.

"- I can literally feel you overthinking this," Catra complains aloud, her breath brushing the other's ear, still ticklish. 

"Overthinking what?" Scorpia scoffs, tone playful.

"This touching-you thing. It's one time. Personal space rules still apply after this, got it?" A small and indignant huff, tail flicking.

"Got it!" 

Uh-huh, totally. Easy. Put Catra down, resist hugging her... damn it, why did the universe just make her so cuddly-comfortable if she wasn't supposed to be hugged?

Scorpia was calling bullshit. Catra definitely needed the hugging. The fact that she yelled so much about not being hugged (with sheathed claws every time, mind you, when Scorpia damn well knew she could get free any time she wanted by a solid punch) only underlined how _very_ much she needed hugs. 

"Scorpia, I mean it this time. No more kitty."

"Nooooo more kitty." she parrots back, because that's what Catra wants. 

"It's demeaning. I'm not a pet, and I don't need your hugs, and personal space is a very serious issue--" Catra continues, and she hums along amicably.

"You're an independent woman, Catra! Busting out that captain voice." She compliments neatly, which gets a tail flicked into her eye.

"Augh," huffs Catra as they round the corner to the Fright Zone. 

The sight of it reminds Scorpia what they're actually supposed to be doing.

The battle at Bright Moon hadn't gone well, despite all of their efforts; if she were honest, it left a bitter taste in her mouth to see so many come to the call that no one had answered in her childhood. They'd limped home to an immediate rebuke:

Hordak had been very unhappy. They'd known it would happen, even though countless princesses had crashed the party, even though they'd literally almost gotten to the queen before they were forced back.

While Scorpia liked to look on the bright side, well, even she had to admit that the failure was a bit of a slap in the face, but not to Hordak. To Entrapta, who worked hard and was left behind by the princesses, yes, to Catra, who fought so damn hard to even get to Bright Moon, yes, even to Scorpia, who supported both of her best friends in the whole wide world as much as she could: it was a slap in the face to them.

Both figuratively and literally, in the shape of a friendship-shaped rainbow tsunami. 

Not to Hordak, though, who hadn't even left the Fright Zone's depths.

So she and Entrapta had gone with Catra to that meeting, stubbornly; nothing could have pulled them from the feline's side at that. No matter how tall she stood, how much she insisted she was fine without help; well, she deserved backup. Deserved someone not to leave.

And hey, Scorpia was pretty good at not leaving. So was Entrapta. 

They'd stood on either side of her, backed up her claims, watched her stare down their fearless leader until he narrowed crimson eyes and scoffed, faintly, told her to prove her worth.

Privately, she rather thought the cat had already done that. She'd gone relentlessly after someone everyone had known she loved, she'd refused to defect despite pleas to change sides, she'd managed not one but two assaults on princess kingdoms and taken down Shadow Weaver herself. It was a pretty impressive roster for a cadet that Shadow Weaver had made her disdain so clear for and Hordak hadn't thought much of.

Almost doubly so if you considered that Catra had definitely missed Force Captain orientation and was doing absolutely everything off the cuff.

Which sort of maybe cracked her up to no end, but that was beside the point.

The point was that they'd failed, and Catra had taken it to heart. She'd gone training out of the Fright Zone for longer than Scorpia felt totally comfortable with, and she was bringing her on home to the Fright Zone after rouuuughly 24 hours of the new second-in-command not sleeping or taking a break. 

So she'd gone off and scooped the (very tired) feline up and dragged her home, only sort of kicking and screaming, which had turned into tiny kitty snores halfway, and now Catra was awake again as they headed up to the wall to get back in. Talk about a cat nap!

"Hoooomeward bound, Catra! Or Second-in-Command. Admiral?" Scorpia guessed to herself, beaming.

They weren't quite in sight of anyone yet, which was why she suspected her peer hadn't leaped off her shoulders to hide the fact she could occasionally be ...human? Was human the right word?

"We're almost here, and you can actually sleep - Entrapta's been busy as can be, something about the First Ones again, and she says we should come over - but after you sleep, I really want to get in some more artwork with these new charcoals --"

"- Wait, Entrapta wants me?"

Scorpia's grin widens.

"Wants _us!_ The beeeest friends ever! The Super Pal Duo! To come talk to her! Now we're the Super Pal Trrrrio, I like the sound of that. Maybe it could be a sleepover, she doesn't get too much rest either and we could all use a bit of it-" 

"Scorpia- put me down, god," Catra's tiny claws luckily don't scratch too much when she clambers on down with a groan, springing to her feet in no time, "We're supposed to be taking down Bright Moon while the Whispering Forest is in shambles, remember? We don't have _time_ to rest."

Her lips pucker in a pout in response, humming lowly back to her.

"Our troops could use a couple days to regroup and get our skiffs back in order. We lost a lot of tanks, remember?"

"But Entrapta's working on more weapons, so we won't even need those...," Catra starts to argue, but the tilt of her ears means she knows Scorpia isn't wrong. 

"Oh yes we will, how will we get our soldiers anywhere without them? We can't just walk, especially not if they're going to try to fix that forest." Scorpia points out, already started for Entrapta's eccentric lab.

Padded feet follow her with nigh-silent steps despite a grumble, down green-tinted hallways and through the maze of corridors laid out in an orderly grid.

Entrapta's lab is tucked away in comparison to the neat boxes every other room fit in, Shadow Weaver's former haunt turned into a massive metal skeleton of wires and tubes. It's almost impressive, how quickly Entrapta settled in: really, all it took was some decent tiny food and a lot of bolts and screws, and she was perfectly happy to throw herself into her work with a dangerous dedication.

Maybe it had to do with how they'd left her behind without so much as a word. Maybe it had to do with the clear annoyance the princesses had shown every time Scorpia had seen them together, even before they escaped without the purple-haired royal. 

Scorpia personally thought that the Rebellion had a very stupid tendency to leave very powerful people behind. That said, she was also sort of grateful they were that stupid - otherwise, how would she have had her Best Friends Ever??? She wouldn't! 

She's so lost in thought that turning the corner into Entrapta's lab goes a little too quickly, and she bonks right into the door - damn, that's gonna leave a dent - and a moment later a lavender blur slams into her with a thwack that echoes.

"- I've got it! I've got the location!" 

Even for someone with super strength, getting body-checked by a hundred pounds of hair and sheer excitement can wind you a minute.

"With this, we could expand resources by 300%! If we just took the core and hooked it up to the central surface system I located last night, it would be a piece of cake to fix up the grid with the black garnet back into hacking the system as before, but _better!_ We'd be able to-"  

She's talking too quickly now to follow at all, Scorpia mentally tuning it out in favor for paying attention to the bright grin on Entrapta's face instead as she leans up.

Catra isn't as patient, hand already pulling on Entrapta's hair (never too hard, mind you, Scorpia's noticed that too) to get her attention.

"Hey! English."

A wheezy sigh from Entrapta, pausing in her characteristic way as her brain's forced to skip a beat and actually think about what she's saying, before she lifts a screwdriver with a victorious jab into the air.

"I found a source of First Ones' tech that we could use to rebuild the system I made! And if we had this piece, it'd be twice as powerful as the first time I hacked the planet, if not better - but we have to get it first, you know?" 

Ears perk up, Scorpia listening as she watches Catra's face in context to the new information. 

Her lips curl in response, although ears are already shoving forward, fur not bristling - oooh, she's gonna guessed. Pleased. Thinking of a plan, Catra's always thinking. Tiny claws flexing and moving gradually, excited as her tail starts swishing; not a mad swish, notably, a good swish.

"So where is it?" the feline wants to know, and oh yeah, Scorpia's the best, her best friend is definitely happy. 

"Weeeell. It's in the Whispering Woods- but not in the other place you've gone before, the northern part you haven't reached..." Entrapta pauses with a hum, thinking as her hands errantly toss a map between her palms.

Catra's claws snick as they latch onto the map, picking up the pad to hold and look over the signals given off. Sure enough, there's a cyan blip against dark cobalt, brighter than all the other markings around it that detail the technology underneath the Whispering Forests's depths.

Brushing back stray locks of her mane, the feline looks up to them both.

"How come we can see this now? Since the forest's been razed?"

"Yeah, basically- it must have obscured itself using the plants somehow, fascinating really, I'd love to know how they programmed it to-"

A thought pops into Scorpia's head and so the words go straight out.

"...So if the forest gets fixed, we might lose it again?"

Both pause, Entrapta's hair surreptitiously sneaking the map back into her grasp to calibrate the thing. More dots show up, before an odd wave of sapphire washes over the darker hues.

"...Yeah. So we should maybe think about moving quickly-"

The feline's fangs peek from the corners of her mouth in a soft hiss of frustration.

"What are we looking for? I can set out tonight."

"Well, I could use a keystone, it would look about like this but it might be built into an inaccessible board-"

Scorpia crosses her arms uncertainly, tail curling and uncurling as she listens to them both talk.

"Shouldn't- we all just go?"

Two sets of eyes turn on her, incredulous for two very different reasons.

"Beeeest friends trip?"

Scorpia tries again.

Catra's frown goes deeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been so long since i've written anything on here, so i'm starting new! keep in mind i'm a college student who is very unfortunately starting this the same night as the first day of classes so things are sure to go downhill in terms of scheduled writing, but i'll try for once a week.
> 
> trying to get scorpia's tone right, lo siento if it seems messy!


	2. Starting Fresh

 “I can’t believe you fucking talked me into this!”

Catra’s voice echoes from the down the hall, Scorpia grinning to herself at the pointed thumps of rolled-up blankets and batons getting thrown into a rucksack.

One hour until they set off, and the feline's already voicing not second thoughts, but third, fourth, and fifth ones. Right now, their troop is gathering their things as well while remaining skiffs are readied and double-checked by Entrapta to ensure they'll manage the whole trip in one piece despite the battering they took at Bright Moon.

“This is crazy, what do we do if they catch us all in the ruins and start shutting down the building on our heads…”

Her voice gets hard to hear, perhaps having her head buried in a weapons locker.

The white-haired princess chuckles to herself, calling back.

“It’ll be a great vacati - I mean, important expedition-- for everybody! We could use it, you know, for training, and, uhhh, team building activities, and making friendship bracelets cause I’ve always wanted to try-”

Heterochromatic eyes in her face and the weight on her shoulders make her backtrack, smile widening hastily to deflect Catra’s (upside-down) glare.

“What the _fuck_ is a friendship bracelet?”

Scorpia blinks, unable to help a chuckle that rumbles in her chest and only pisses off her orange companion, from the flattening of black ears.

"It's like- it's a bracelet you make, you know, for a friend? Like it's in the name, you usually make it for them so they can wear it and you can wear the one they make you, I guess it's like to physically symbolize your bond or something..."

Hm. From Catra's expression, she's both baffled and maybe irritated.

Oh, yeah, the Horde really doesn't encourage close relationships. She’s never heard of a friendship bracelet before, or maybe not even a gift.

Oops.

"That's...so you, Scorpia," Catra snorts in her face, still perched on Scorpia's shoulders.

"I didn't make it up!" She scoffs back at the clear disbelief on the other's face, the feline launching off her broad shoulders to alight on the ground and eye Scorpia's packed clothes. They're neatly rolled in little lines into her bag, traveling fairly light for what they're guessing will be a two-day trip, tops. Her arms cross as the other's pincers settle proudly onto her work, closing the bag with straps adapted for her unwieldy hands.

"Sure you didn't... Are you ready to go?"

The question is punctuated by an impatient flick of Catra's tail, the taller woman padding over to skim eyes over her own belongings and make sure no essentials are missing.

"Think so! Emergency ropes, extra daggers, rations...sense of adventure... I think we're all good!"

Scorpia agrees within a moment or two, slinging the rucksack onto her back.

Her companion is already at the door, shadow vanishing around the corner even as the last syllables fade from the air.

She can't help the smile that curves widely across her lips to that, already excited at the idea of a trip with all of her new companions. This will definitely go well, and well… Fresh air and a bit of space from Hordak’s watchful eye will do all three of them some favors, really.

Entrapta hasn't left the Fright Zone since she came on that ill-wrought rescue attempt, so Scorpia's sure she'll like the change of surroundings, and Catra, well, once she found the world outside the walls, the Fright Zone was never going to be big enough ever again.

Long strides easily catch her on up to the feline in question, turning the corner to lockers, where-

Kyle and Rogelio stiffen up from their positions, the human having been leaned into the reptile’s chest. Hands drop from an embrace, each of their expressions screaming uncertainty as they edge a couple inches apart, Catra pausing only a second.

“Are you two ready to go?”

No comment on the way the lizard’s hands had definitely been settled on Kyle’s hips makes Rogelio briskly nod, Kyle deflating in clear relief.

Scorpia beams to herself, unable to help it as Catra moves past the two.

“Alright- enough packing up, where’s Lonnie?”

Her indignant call is edging on a yowl, Scorpia observing a scaly tail sliding along the back of Kyle’s calf in reassurance as he sheepishly fixes his haphazard uniform collar.

_“Cadet Lonnie!”_

Ooo, captain voice getting busted out again.

“Damn, Catra! I’m fuckin’ coming!”

Lonnie is quick to fire from the barracks, soon emerging with her own readied bag. Her eyes are narrowed in irritation, tugging up her helmet to fasten atop the rucksack.

“What took you so long?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know. Are the skiffs ready?”

Catra’s ears flatten, a sign of a very irritated cat. Time to swoop in, in her professional opinion.

“Well! We’ve gotta go talk to Entrapta about that right now.” Scorpia interjects.

Slit pupils move her way, tail flicking unhappily.

“Yeah. Grab your bags, we’re going. Now.”

Turning on one heel, Catra will see herself out. Scorpia offers a wave to the two boys - who are inching closer again with the second-in-command not looking - and to Lonnie, who ignores it for the most part, before following.

Outside, Entrapta is perched atop a skiff, an entire panel balanced atop Emily as the bot beeps a weirdly catchy little tune along to the princess’s content whistling and occasional mutters. The robot spins to turn a red ‘eye’ on the approaching squad, purple hair perking up a moment later.

“Scorpia! Catra! We’re almost set!”

The other calls cheerily from behind her mask, the eerie magenta glow far from menacing by now. Then again, maybe nothing was too menacing to Scorpia now aside from Hordak and Shadow Weaver before Catra kicked her ass.

“We’re coming! I think we’ve got everybody.”

Scorpia flickers back a glance to make sure, the trio of cadets behind them indeed as Catra bounds up neatly onto the skiff’s surface. Only two have been spared for this trip, fully fueled and each with some small Emily-clones settled on the backs as extra guards.

“We’re traveling light…” Kyle says aloud, unable to help the tinge of anxiety to it.

“We don’t want to be noticeable. With the forest so down and low, taking a ship would be asking the princess parade to come crashing on our skulls.”

Lonnie answers without Catra even having to look back, the blond boy fidgeting with his hands as he nods slowly.

“Okay…”

Rogelio’s hand alights on his shoulder a moment, a warm press that he melts somewhat into. Holding in a silly grin, Scorpia takes the moment to join Entrapta and Catra on the skiff’s surface.

Entrapta’s almost done, coaxing Emily into putting the panel back steady as she bolts it into place where it belongs.

“Who’s piloting the second skiff?” Catra calls to the other three, Lonnie already stepping forward before either of the boys say anything.

“I’ve got it.”

“Alright. Keep right behind us, we’re going to have to skirt the fringes in case they’re all in the woods trying to fix them,” the commander calls briskly, already settling into place at the helm of the skiff.

Scorpia settles by the fan of the vehicle, anchoring herself in place to secure bags while the engine purrs to life. It’s quieter than ever with whatever Entrapta did to it, a low muted hum that reverberates through the floor - hovering off the ground gradually as Catra maneuvers it up.

The lavender-haired princess moves to stand beside Scorpia, hands finding her arm.

Contact makes her blink, glancing to Entrapta; she’s worrying at her lip with her teeth, hair surprisingly limp aside from where it’s curled loosely about one of Emily’s legs.

“...Entrapta? You okay?”

Blunt fingernails curl a little more into her rougher exoskeleton on that part of her arm, the sensation dulled somewhat.

“Yeah. Just busy thinking!”

Her voice is misleadingly cheerful, contradictory to the furrow between her brows, and it cajoles Scorpia to put an arm around her and pull her against her side. 

“No need to do that right now! Catra’s got the map and the throttle, soooo-”

Catra starts off the skiff with a jolt of gas, right on time: the skiff lurches into motion without so much as a rumble, jettisoning ahead immediately as Entrapta clings onto the taller woman.

“-- we’re fine!” Scorpia is quick to tag on despite her surprise, boots well braced to hold steady. Lonnie’s skiff launches after them smoothly, dust from the desert around the Fright Zone rising in a plume after them as they race ahead.

The princess’s grip doesn’t loosen, soft against her side as she makes an uneasy sound.

“Well, by my calculations, we have over a 90% chance of running into the Rebellion just by being near Catra. She and -- the, the She-Ra consistently encounter each other for every week of active duty…”

Entrapta’s words trail off, muffled thankfully from Catra’s ears at the moment; well, Scorpia hopes so, anyway, but if they aren’t, the second in command isn’t showing it at all, focused on navigating spires of rock erupting from the desert’s surface at a breakneck pace.

“Hey. Heeeey. It’s alright! We’re the best friends trio! You and me and Catra forever, right? We’ll be right there to protect you if they try to mess with you. We won’t go anywhere.”

She points out to her, squeezing reassuringly.

“But the calculations-”

“Won’t stop us from being there with you if Adora does show up with the princesses. You really think me and Catra are gonna let them anywhere near you?”

A shake of her head in response to Scorpia’s question, slower. Her neck bobs with a swallow, scarlet eyes rising soon to glance first to Catra’s tall stance, stiff back-- ears thrust forward, mane flowing in the wind, the picture of ferocity even as calm as she looks...and back to Scorpia, whose smile is sunshine personified, equally willing to give life as to take.

There’s a pause, hair tightening a little around Scorpia’s other side.

“You… you promise?”

The other abruptly sounds awfully small, a lot less like the Horde’s best weapons technician and a lot more like the girl who deserved more than being left behind.

Scorpia looks down, mouth already open -

“Promise,” Catra’s voice is clear and crisp even from here.

Her stance hasn’t changed at all, tone nothing but a driven sincerity, and it makes Scorpia’s breath catch just a moment before she can recollect herself.

“... - Yeah! Promise!” She echoes immediately after the feline, smile tugging at her cheeks from the sheer width, even as she squeezes Entrapta again.

“You’ll be back at the lab before you know it. Plus, we’re not even going after the Rebellion this time! We won’t see them at all if we play our cards alright and they’re not already there,” Scorpia reassures neatly.

“I guess… the probability of an encounter doesn’t include the outliers in the data, you’re right - I should rework the statistical data-”

Trailing back into territory Scorpia doesn’t get, but hey, what matters is that Entrapta’s thinking face is on and it’s not that awful chewing-her-lip one.

The skiff is approaching the edges of the desert by now, endless gold stretching to what used to be a sea of green and is now razed brown, only edges of blue and green peeking in faint sprouts and clumps from the earth.

Catra doesn’t slow down much, arcing the trajectory of the skiff to enter the main path the Horde had used on its way in.

They’d be able to follow that path of destruction halfway through the Whispering Woods before they needed to break off into uncharted ruins, from the way the map had looked when Scorpia saw it earlier, and soon a rush of cool air pardons the desert heat as they cross the edge between gold and green.

A glance back tells Scorpia that Lonnie’s keeping pace fine, the skiffs shearing edges off ferns peeking from the ground as they skim over the surface of the forest along the winding path known from only a week ago.

As it was before, it’s eerily quiet aside from the rush of the wind and the engine vibrating, sunlight casting a harsh light on past sins.

Entrapta, still quiet beside Scorpia, looks over what they’d all wrought as one entity. Fallen trees missing leaves and limbs, foliage and inhabitants entirely rousted from the sheared undergrowth. Tank tracks still carve impressions through the landscape, skiffs’ blade clippings visible on trunks and ashes dusting the ground here and there - grave in atmosphere.

It looks and feels like war has tread here.

Snaking past a hollow tree trunk, Catra soon diverges off the path in quest of the path Entrapta had programmed in, skiff tilting neatly to perform the turn that much faster.

Lonnie’s skiff trails fast on their heels, the other adding gas to speed up a bit, pick up the pace northwards, where the sapphire blip awaits on a screen.

“Catra?”

Scorpia’s voice feels lost on the wind, but an ear swivels her way.

“We should probably be careful entering the ruins, if they’re anything like the ones you described last time, right?”

The tail flicks - well, she thinks so, maybe the wind caught it bad.

“Yeah, Scorpia. It’ll mess with your mind.”

“...In what way? Like Shadow Weaver mess with your head or like a ‘I think I’ve seen that bug today already in a different spot’ mess with you?”

“Shadow Weaver.”

“Ah.”

Damn. Can’t blame her for asking, though.

They skim along ferns and broken timber, weaving through stumps and skeletons of still-standing trees. All of it looks different for once - unlike the Whispering Woods’ usual similarity in every facet.

Her own tail can’t help furling up with a twitch or two, Entrapta perking up as the beeps on Catra’s map grow louder and more rapid, the sapphire blip on their radar ever-closer.

Giving the skiff a little more throttle, Catra turns a sharp corner-

and stops them all so suddenly that Lonnie narrowly misses slamming into them, skiff narrowly jerking to the left of them with a screech of the engines.

“Oi! What the fuck are you--”

Lonnie’s shout trails off abruptly in the face of the gorge sprawling beneath them.

It’s astoundingly deep, the narrow rocky walls plunging down to an emerald river at the very bottom - and in the side of the cliffs motifs are carved, some oddly hypnotic pattern of faded purple pushed into silver granite and the strips of natural color woven into the rock.

On either side the Whispering Woods' gravely silence stretches, only the faint rushing of the gorgeous waters below making any sound. It's almost eerie, with the faint misted spray that's thrown by the river tumbling down outcroppings of rock, fogging up the visible bottom to a mere outline.

This certainly doesn't look like ruins, excepting the old murals fading on the opposite wall.

Breathing in the air feels like a bit like suffocating, warm and humid in comparison to the woods' brisk chill. Vines creep down the sides of the gorge, ivy having rooted itself into the cliff face to obscure large portions of the patterns - mosses and molds an even better curtain to hide behind than those.

Couple the silence with the air itself, and the entire place feels like it's being intruded on, by the sleek silver skiffs and their blunt machinery, by the green-tinged Emily clones and the humans' uniformed bodies.

“What the hell is that…” Catra mutters almost to herself, Scorpia’s feet ungluing from the floor to slowly bring herself to the cat’s side.

From here, it's even bigger; the plunge down looks deadly, and downstream the gorge widens from a narrow passage perhaps a skiff's width to one that could comfortably fit a small ship, river's path similarly widening out to winding sandy banks peppered with reeds.

“...My contour map doesn’t match this at all…” Entrapta’s voice is slow and awed, moving with careful steps to stand on Catra’s other side and look down the gorge, “- This should be even ground with a slight northern incline of 5%…”

“I don’t know what the hell that means, but that doesn’t look like a fucking 5% to me.”

“Are we in the right place?” Scorpia feels the need to check, even though the map shows they’re practically atop the blue symbol that was their goal.

Entrapta's hair snags the navigating device, already starting to mess with buttons as Lonnie and the other two cadets merely look around and over the sight in muted shock. The beeps from the device keep breaking the quiet, a sound that feels intrinsically wrong here.

Catra leans over the skiff edge, peering at the motifs for a long moment. Scorpia watches her, watches the way her ears gradually flatten, before she'll lift a wrist to point at them. Her eyes follow the silent command, to check the motifs again.

In the center a carving of a very familiar warrior stands proudly interlocked into the pattern, sword lofted above like the sun. Golden paint - or dye of some variation, maybe the stone itself - has faded over time, but it still gives the impression of a halo about the woman’s head.

She's far from unnoticeable, but the colors mean she was easy to miss on the first glance: never to Catra, though.

“Yeah. We’re in the right place.”

No one’s surprised by the feline’s low tone, and Scorpia soon leans up with a smile.

“Well, that’s good! We’re here without seeing any of the rebels, and it looks- pretty quiet, I’d say, but… how do we get down there?”

“The skiffs might fit if we’re careful,” Lonnie interjects, Kyle pale as he leans into Rogelio.

Catra sizes up the gorge with a frown, tail lashing once before she nods to herself.

“We can’t leave them up here out in the open. The gorge widens up downstream there- let’s take them down and park them on the bank.”

Scorpia makes a noise of agreement, straightening up to anchor back in as Catra's clawed hand finds the skiff’s steering.

Hovering over the open air, they soon start their descent.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early update, whoops, but I was feeling it! Now we're where we need to be, and hey, the fun stuff starts next,,


End file.
